About

Leonard Burton

User Experience & Creative Technology

I'm a freelance user experience (UX) designer & developer currently based in Tokyo, Japan. I work for clients remotely around the world; from small businesses, to startups, to enterprise level companies. At this time my projects revolve primarily around the web and iOS design.

In addition to this I spend a significant amount of my time learning and experimenting with emerging technologies. Over the last couple of years this has primarily been with virtual reality (VR) tech, though I have also experimented with augmented reality (AR), eye tracking, motion capture and computer vision.

I love a good challenge.

User Experience

Hands on design with the user at its heart

User experience designer is a title often abused; many use it as a way to simply dress up their job title. However there is a big difference between regular design work and UX design. I pride myself on being a true disciple of user experience design.

I believe that the user should be at the core of design decisions though there is a lot more to take in to consideration during the design process. There is a time for "blue sky thinking" but designing for a purpose should take time consider and compliment the project eco-system. Design problems and their solutions are not exclusive to the user interface. Solutions should consider your developers; their challenges; business strategy; project timelines / resources; and budget. Good design understands the problems of the team too.

Over my career I have learnt UX design through hands on work. I first started out designing and developing websites as a solo effort, later joining teams on contract basis to learn and collaborate with others. This has allowed me to understand the many spheres of business, development and how to operate as seamlessly as possible when working on any project.

Creative Technology

VR, AR & beyond

Get me talking about this subject and you'll have a hard time shutting me up!

I've always been drawn to new technologies, it's part of why I was drawn to making websites and designing apps. These days I like to learn what emerging technologies are available to get the best idea of how to utlise them moving.

As I mentioned previously on this page I've experimented with both AR and VR. My most significant project was called "Podrift". A shared VR experience where by you could meet with people in the virtual space to create VR content that people could not only watch being made live but also replay later on whilst being present in the virtual world. In short, a virtual TV studio. Though there are a few companies offering similar social experiences for VR now, Podrift was amongst the first to create and showcase social VR during it's renaissance phase.